get started with a great offer as low as $60 a month. no one does business like comcast business. >> our country is built on values. that's what binds us all together. and i my view has always been that those values don't have anything to do with political parties. when i'm a prosecutor and i have to get credibility, build credibility with a judge or a witness, the jury. right? it's not about

politics. it's about truthfulness, integrity, being decent to each other, exhibiting kindness, judgment. i think those are the things that bind us together, and those are the sort of things we should lean into. like i feel like personally, as divided as we are, if we lean into issues of integrity more that that's the best hope to get people more back together than we are now. >> as former special counsel jack smith, speaking exclusively yesterday with m. s now's nicole wallace. we will have much more ahead from that wide ranging conversation. smith's first live television interview since he resigned from the department of justice. good morning, and welcome to morning joe. it is friday, july 3rd. thank you for being with us. i'm jonathan lemire in for joe mika and willie with us. we have a great group. msnbc senior capitol hill reporter and the host of way too early. ali vitali, columnist and

associate editor at the washington post. david ignatius, m.s. now senior washington reporter and co-host of the weekend eugene daniels and opinion columnist for the new york times, david french. thank you all for being with us this morning. happy 4th of july to you and to all those watching at home. we have a lot to get to. it's a busy morning, and we'll begin with president trump continuing to defend his wealth and his children's business dealings. after financial disclosures revealed earlier this week that the president has made more than $2 billion during his first year back in office. >> in the disclosure this week, the amount of money that that you and the family made in crypto, it was an outsized number. i was just asking, did you were you know about the crypto ventures? so that was just something i. >> could know about it. >> i didn't. >> i mean, there's nothing illegal. there's nothing wrong with it. i could know i feel badly, in a way, for my kids

because every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock or if they go and do a bill, anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything. if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is, you know, sort of like, how's my energy policy? so therefore you have a conflict. almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you know, they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information. so it's pretty tough in that sense. i tell my kids, stay away from as much as you can stay away from. but they also have a life. you know, they we were doing business long before i ever thought of. you knew me a long time before i thought of even running. >> but the dealings under scrutiny are, of course, not as simple as simply buying a new vehicle. both of trump's sons have benefited when companies they own or they are involved

with have either inked deals with the white house or cashed in on deals made by their father's administration. and they both have gained from cryptocurrency ventures under their dad's name, donald trump jr and eric trump co-founded world liberty financial with president trump. that means that they earned a portion of the more than 500 million in token sales and $65 million in selling equity stake that the company brought in last year. david french, that was trump there at our sister network cnbc, trying to explain this away. the new york times, your paper and other places have written extraordinary pieces just about how unprecedented this in. sure, we've had other wealthy presidents before, but we've never had one who's made this sort of money while in office. and seemingly he and his family making this money because he was in office.

>> we cannot forget also that the trump administration, the trump campaign made hunter biden a centerpiece of the entire 2024 contest. i mean, they were talking about hunter biden and relentlessly so was right wing media. and hunter biden never got within shouting distance, screaming distance of the kind of numbers that we're talking about here. and then the kind of overt self-dealing, stock trading, crypto investing that we're seeing in which the president is enriching himself. and then many of these riches are being extended to friends, supporters, etc. at a scale in which, you know, i've said this before, that the gilded age, the gilded age oligarchs are sitting there thinking that they, you know, are rolling in their graves, that they were doing this in the wrong century. they could have made real money if only they were waiting around until the 2020s. and so, you know, this is a situation here, though, that has some resonance with a very recent electoral outcome in europe,

where once the some of the economic promises of populism start to falter once some of the the the grandiose authoritarian ideas of this new populism, populism start to lose their luster, then a lot of voters start to look at corruption. they often won't look at it when times are good, when they're feeling good, but when times when they're under strain, when inflation is increasing, when they're feeling pressure in the job market, the absolute last thing they want to see is a president of the united states making himself multi-billionaire multiple billions of dollars, really exploiting the opportunity that they gave him. and so this is something that, while economy's humming, doesn't really hit us, but it absolutely does when people are struggling. >> yeah. i was revealed on the show yesterday that i talked to a number of democrats just in the last week or two. who david, to your point, feel that corruption could be a real winning issue this fall for

exactly the reasons you just laid out. david ignatius, of course, comes as no surprise that republicans have been silent on this the last couple of days. you know, after, you know, beating the drum about hunter biden, you know, managing to avoid reporters this week and about president trump and the money that he and his family are making. and of course, just putting this in context, i can't help but think and maybe it's because of the 4th of july and the 250 thinking back upon american history and our presidents and noting that jimmy carter had to sell his peanut farm, other presidents have gone above and beyond. it was public service was meant. there was a sense of self-sacrifice. you were putting the country ahead of your own personal interest. that is simply not the case with our current commander in chief. >> trump has just blown through every limit that we thought that we had as a country. it's painful to watch it. if you grew up, as i did in washington, d.c. and understanding, my dad

served in government, that there were certain things you just couldn't do. they weren't right, that you were. this was about public service. i was struck this week by president trump celebrating theodore roosevelt, one of our great presidents, and roosevelt's important in our history because he came into a political world that was thoroughly corrupt. offices were for sale in new york, where he lived. literally, it was run by by a kind of mob bosses. and roosevelt got his start as a political reformer by saying, we need a absolutely strict standards for government employees. we need conflict of interest laws so that people can't deal on their own behalf, become rich while they're serving the public. that was that was president teddy roosevelt. and he was tough and he prosecuted people. and now we have a president who is i mean, the numbers just stunning. $2 billion last year as

president, as our president working for us, took in this private money. and you can only imagine he was looking at a at a ai laser generated image of theodore. you can only imagine what the real theodore roosevelt would have had to say to donald trump if he'd happened to encounter him this last week. yeah, he had some pretty stern words for our president. >> and the president and his family. not shy about suggesting that they aim to continue to make money while the president is in office. we, of course, will be staying on this story, but we want to turn now back to jack smith and his first live television interview since resigning from the doj. the former special counsel sat down exclusively with our friend miss now's nicole wallace for that wide ranging conversation yesterday, before he stepped down from the doj back in 2025, smith brought two cases against donald trump, one on election interference and the other related to classified documents. both were dropped because trump then won the

presidency in 2024. smith defended his investigations and also weighed in on the rule of law, as well as his concerns about the upcoming midterm elections. >> i have investigated cases focusing on the facts and the law throughout my career. we did this case the same way under the same standards. and, you know, the thing that's, i think, important for your viewers to know is those standards are not meant to change from one administration to the next. and in my experience, until now, they haven't. and so, you know, i think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything i've seen in my lifetime. one of the problems right today, besides the the retribution prosecutions, is that the justice department can't do its job right if you go to court. explain that. well, if you go to court and the judges don't trust you, you can't do the basic things that you need to do to represent the

american people in court. and we have seen judges across the country say they can't trust prosecutors anymore. and that has such a cascading effect on any sort of case. and, you know, i can't count how many opinions, but one opinion like that in my career would have been seismic. people could not would not know what to do if a court said, you know, trust that's been built over generations has been lost in days, right? and that's happening every day. and so regardless of what you think politically, they're just not effective at doing their job anymore. >> well, let me ask you first. do you agree that we are covering in real time an assault on our elections, the upcoming months? >> i'm very concerned of what's going to happen in the next election. absolutely. it's a different situation now based on, you know, the people who perpetrated january 6th. they probably learned from how they did that. my personal view is, i think the state attorney generals have a tremendous role to play here. they can make sure the rule of law functions in their state. and i would

also say that i think a thing that all of us can do is support election workers and election officials. the last time around, we saw that those people stood firm and they were, in many cases, the difference. it's clear to me anyways, that where i've seen publicly that those people are going to be put under great pressure, and my experience not only just the special counsel, but, you know, i was the chief of the public integrity section at the department of justice for five years, had a number of cases with election officials. these are people also. they're not tooting their own horn. they're not self-promoters. they just care about our democracy. we need to show them that we have their back. >> if you were if you took the name of our country off it and you were just examining the state of the rule of law in america, is it dead? >> i don't think so at all. and for the reasons i said earlier, there are legions of career prosecutors, people just like me. you just don't know their

name who are want to do the right thing. they're in the justice department. they want to serve. we have a lot of challenges in front of us, and the rehabilitation of the department is not going to be any mean feat. gaining it in the first place. but i think we're totally capable of doing that. i'm completely optimistic. >> vitale. an extraordinary interview they're finally hearing from jack smith. and i think a stark assessment of, of course, what what happened, why his case has vanished, but also his fears, though he voted, you know, he suggested rule of law, he believes still is alive, alive and well here in the united states. but his fears about this upcoming election and beyond. >> well, look, i think that there needs to be a dose of some optimism in that. otherwise, the entire tone and tenor of the interview is from dire warning to all out, we are in flames. and so you still need somewhere to go, right?

and i think that's why what happens in november is so important. i mean, i can't tell you the number of phone calls that i get from, you know, democratic operatives looking at various parts of our election systems and wondering, okay, where could they be exploited and what could we do to plug that hole? in advance of that, i think the early answer is that you just sort of have to wait to file these things in court until something happens. and so you've just got legions of people who understand our election systems trying to figure out the ways that something might go wrong. nevertheless, i think it's a dire assessment from jack smith, someone who has been loath to come out in the media who, when he was hauled in front of congress, immediately wanted to do so in the public eye because he had never been given a chance to present his findings. and the thing that i really keep in the back of my mind is that the foundation of jack smith coming forward right now, eugene, is that he is someone who felt he could have successfully prosecuted the current president of the united states on not just keeping classified documents after leaving office, but on meddling with and trying to corrupt

american election results after he lost the 2020 presidential election. and the thing that's changed since then is that the american public saw january 6th. they watched the next few years, and then they said, you know what? let's put that person back in office again. and so i wonder how you make sense of the jack smith warnings, the work that he did, the knowledge that he brings to the table, and the fact that the american public still said, this is the person we want in the oval. >> yeah. there's probably no one more frustrated about that than jack smith, right? he is someone who understands more intimately than any of us do, about what happened and what the trump team was doing, what their allies were doing. a lot of it happened in plain view, right. the phone call in georgia. et cetera. but there are things that he knows that none of us we may never know now because of the judges. what i took from that interview the most was that one. he is someone who doesn't want to speak out. like you said, like we've had folks that have worked for him on our show. you probably have them on yours. and the thing that they said over and over is like, this is

not a guy who wants to be out front talking to reporters. he doesn't want to do two blocks on any show, you know, let alone a show as amazing, an amazing journalist like nicolle wallace. but he's doing it, they say, because he is so concerned. and the hope is that one, maybe not maga republicans, but people will watch that and say, okay, since this is a guy who knows all of this, maybe there is something there as we get closer. maybe i should rethink the way that we're thinking about this. and most importantly, he doesn't sound unhinged or crazy or full of hate like donald trump and some republicans have tried to paint him. so it's also about making clear to folks like, he's just a normal guy who's a prosecutor, very measured, who knows a lot of information and wants people to be concerned about what's going to happen in this country. >> eugene, i had the same feeling listening to jack smith. i was reminded that this is a career prosecutor. he's talking about how to rehabilitate, how to rebuild the justice department. he's talking about the career attorneys who are still there trying to do their

jobs. he says, i was for five years the head of the public integrity section, prosecuting republicans, democrats, everybody i stand for. he's, in effect, telling us the rule of law and we're going to rebuild that. it was it was you know, he's not a defeated guy. he's facing enormous pressure himself. but his thoughts, you know, were with his colleagues. we're with the country. we're with the rule of law. so jonathan, you know, he's that that interview is pretty powerful. but i think we got a sense of who jack smith is in his in his comments under pressure. that that's pretty interesting. this is this is not a you know, the kind of snarling, anti anti-trump guy that we've been led to believe this is this is a career public prosecutor trying to do his job. >> a career public prosecutor trying to do his job. an important voice to hear from right now and the entire interview available online for those who want to watch more. still ahead here on morning joe,

we'll turn to iran, which is issuing a new warning to oil tankers in the strait of hormuz. we're going to run through that. and what it could mean for the agreement that president trump signed with tehran a few weeks ago. plus, a former top general fired by the president is raising concerns about the u.s. military being politicized. we're going to read from that important new piece. and as we go to break a quick look at the traveler's forecast this morning from accuweather's anna azalea. anna, how's it looking out there? >> well, jonathan, in the northeast we have passed the peak of the heat wave. but don't get me wrong. today still hot. new york set to hit triple digits once again. central park yesterday hitting 100 degrees for the first time since 2012. farther south, not much better. take a look at nashville 96 with some thunderstorms. our coverage of thunderstorms is going to increase today across the southern u.s. so when we take a look at our travel outlook, yeah, the afternoon and evening, it's spotty. but the thunderstorms, the lightning, it's going to cause problems in a lot of places. to

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>> welcome back. let's turn now to the middle east. iran is now issuing a new warning over the strait of hormuz, the key waterway and a major sticking point in negotiations with the united states. in a statement that was reported on state tv, the country's joint military said that all oil tankers moving through the strait must use its approved route or could face a, quote, immediate and forceful response from the armed forces, endangering the security of the violating vessels. iran added that interference by u.s. forces in the waterway will be met with a rapid and decisive reaction. it's not immediately clear what prompted this renewed threat and the ratcheting up of tensions, but u.s. central command put out its own statement about meeting with regional officials, saying the leaders, quote, underscored their shared commitment to the free flow of commerce through the strait. david ignatius,

this sort of underscores just how tenuous this cease fire is. and i'll add to that some new reporting that's out this morning from the new york times and other places where u.s. officials actually went so far in the spring, when the ceasefire first took hold, to warn to tell gulf allies to warn iran that israel might be plotting to kill iran's negotiators, the very people that the u.s. was trying to strike a deal with, which also shows that the u.s. and israel, yet again, not necessarily on the same page when it comes to this war. so take this all together, please, and assess just where things are, because it seems like iran is dead set on exerting real control and potentially charging fees in the strait of hormuz, which president trump has said repeatedly just won't stand. >> so, jonathan, as near as we can tell, these negotiations really have broken down on the on the first insistence the

u.s. had, which was to reopen the strait of hormuz. everything else was to be left for later. the detailed negotiations over the nuclear issue, other aspects. but. but this was supposed to be number one, and it's obvious to me that there is a split within the iranian team that the hardliners in iran do not want to give up control of the strait because they know the leverage that that that that gives them. they've seen that trump has been compelled really to make concession after concession to try to reopen the strait. they don't want to give that up. there are pragmatists in iran, clearly, who favor the deal, because iran will get so much money as soon as the strait opens and assets are unfrozen, billions flow into iran's coffers to be used. however, the iranians want. so. so there's a big financial motivation, but i'm sorry to say, and even sorrier that i'm not surprised to say that these negotiations seem to have stalled before they've really taken off the the the report in

the new york times and also in the washington post this morning about how the united states warned iranian officials that israel was was considering assassinating them back in april. is is stunning. it illustrates the degree to which the united states and israel have begun to diverge in their views. the negotiations. the u.s. wanted to make a deal with the house speaker, mohammad bagher ghalibaf, and with the iranian president and. and warned those officials that they personally might be targeted by the israelis. the u.s. didn't want to lose its negotiating counterparts before the negotiations even even got started back in april. so you can see how the us-israeli tension that has increased week by week since then began with that very sharp concern that the people were trying to negotiate a peace deal with may soon be dead.

>> meanwhile, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, retired general c.q. brown jr. who was abruptly fired by president trump last year, has co-written a new piece for foreign affairs magazine headlined the military and the republic. he and his co-authors write in part this celebrations of america's founding and reflections on its ideals often overlook the central role of civil military relations. this is a mistake when the public is confronted with a problem that seems too big for the civilian branches to solve, the reflex is to ask the military to handle it. but when presidents use the armed forces for more politically contentious missions, such as addressing domestic crime in cities, the work of the military becomes more fraught, resorting to a military solution rather than fixing the underlying incapacity or dysfunction in civilian institutions, diverts the military from focusing on

its primary combat mission. and, as george washington knew, it is not the military's job to save the republic from political impasses. indeed, if you ask too much of the military, you risk the entire enterprise really important work there. and david french in in your recent piece for the new york times, you write about the departure of another general, this one, christopher donahue. i'll quote from you briefly here. donahue is leaving just as the impact of trump's corruption and partisanship and incompetence is becoming obvious to the american people in matters both large and small in scandal after scandal, incident after incident, the same message is sent the morale, effectiveness and integrity of the american military are under siege. and david french, i'm glad we paired these two pieces. first of all, these are both highly

decorated officers forced out by this secretary of defense. just a small piece of a widespread purge that seems targeted, often at certain demographics. and also it does you raise the point, as did that other piece in foreign affairs, that the military here is being misused. and they're real, real dangers that come with that. >> well, yeah, i mean, general donahue's departure, his his forcing out is really the the final nail in the coffin of the idea that actually what he was trying to do was re-implement meritocracy over whatever program the biden administration had. this is a message they've been sending and sending and sending, casting aspersions on general officers who've been fired before. but what general donahue, his reputation was such that by forcing him out, by allowing him to leave, what essentially the the trump administration is saying is that there is no amount of excellence that can trump

politics, because general donahue was one of the most respected leaders in the military from top to bottom, known as the kind of lethal war fighter that hegseth talks about endlessly. and yet he's gone. so this said, politics is everything, and i'm so glad that we went directly from the doj story to the pentagon story, because they have a lot in common. the role of a president who is at the top of the doj or at the top of the pentagon, is to safeguard the integrity, the excellence and the nonpartisan fairness of these institutions. doj guards our rule of law, the military guards, the security of the entire nation and the constitution. and the president's job is not to pull them into his political project. that's not his job. his job is to lead these institutions with integrity. and we are seeing him trying to demolish the integrity of these institutions from the top down. >> the other thing i think that these stories have in common, eugene, is that it is dire

warnings from unorthodox places, people who do not typically speak out in jack smith when it comes to doj in cq brown when it comes to the pentagon. so they are questioning and calling out the lack of integrity, excellence and non-partisanship that david was just talking about. but also when it comes to the meritocracy piece of this, the hiring and firing that hegseth has made. cq brown, actually at the aspen institute last week, said what's starting to happen now is not about merit. all of these people who are being removed are very well experienced, and it is raising concern on capitol hill in bipartisan fashion. i wonder what more you heard about that. and if there's enough concern to pressure to do anything differently, because that hasn't manifested yet. >> there's not a concern. but concern only matters if you do something with that concern and you can walk around the hallways and talk to us on background and say, you know, i'm a republican that's very upset and worried about what's happening to our institutions. but if they don't add do anything with that pressure that you're talking about, then nothing comes of it, right?

it's always it feels like there's this meme on the internet where people are like, oh, someone should really do something about this. and it's like, well, you have the power to do something about this, so maybe you should do that. and i think that is something that has been kind of frustrating about covering all of this is watching republicans for a decade say, this is bad. oh my god, i can't believe this. this is terrible for the institutions. oh my god, this country. and not saying anything publicly that doesn't appear like it's going to change. they haven't pressured pete hegseth at all. and every time i talk to someone who is either around the pentagon, been around the pentagon, worked in the pentagon during any other administration, they're shocked that he's been able to survive over and over and over again. and part of the reason he's been able to survive as secretary of defense is because he has gone out of his way to fire people and talk about an attacking die. he has attacked over and over the kind of institution of the secretary of defense. and that is something that donald trump really wanted. and so that's how he continues to save his job. and i don't see that changing. >> yeah. and these important conversations about the state

of our republic, of course, come against the backdrop of july 4th and the 250th anniversary of our nation, the declaration of independence. and, david ignatius, your latest opinion piece for the washington post is titled a toast to america at 250, glowing and decaying all at once. in it, you write in part this. if we're honest, on this july 4th, we must admit that the sturdy american men and women who made the revolution are a distant historical memory. today, we resemble the imperial britain of 1776 more than the scruffy patriots who rebelled against it. and yet, david, you go on to write, our nation has an uncanny ability to keep climbing, even in the worst of times. our declaration of independence 250 years ago was an aspiration. we still struggle to redeem the promise that all men are created equal, and that there's a universal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. we've had good leaders and terrible ones,

but each year, whatever the adversity, we remember what the story is about and we think how lucky we are still to be part of the american story. and david, give us more of your thoughts as we head into this anniversary weekend. >> so, jonathan, i think like, like all of us around this table and our viewers at home, we're going into this july 4th with complicated mixed feelings. i know we feel a deep love of, of our country every year. 4th of july, my dad, who just passed away last year at almost 105, would announce to the family, i'm going to give a patriotic address. and then he'd shout out our street number and our zip code and that just, you know, that i'll be i'll be missing that, but i'll be, i'll be thinking of the spirit that motivated it. so we have that, that, that feeling, all of us as the

fireworks go off. but i think we also have a deep uneasiness, sometimes even a shame about what our leaders are doing. we talked earlier in the show about this unprecedented accumulation of $2 billion in wealth by the president, blowing through any limits that existed for his his predecessors. it's the kind of behavior that, frankly, our founders just would have been stunned by. they they believed in in basic decency. they believed that people who serve the country would live up to its basic rules and ideals. so on this 4th of july, i, as i said in the piece, we, we, we, we glow with, with, with pride, with the achievements of our country. but we sense a decay that in some ways we do resemble the imperial britain that tried to squash freedom and not the patriots who tried to gain it. >> we, of course, will be spending plenty of time this morning on america at 250 and what it means. david ignatius

and david french, thank you both very much. eugene daniels, thank you as well. happy 4th of july to all of you, eugene. of course, we'll be watching the weekend right here on m. s now coming up here on morning joe. we're going to get a live report on the security preparations for this weekend's triple threat in new york city, which is set to host thousands of july 4th revelers, a world cup match. and yes, of course, the rumored wedding of taylor swift. morning, joe. we'll be right back. >> it's cool. that's what i tell those who story. come on. heaven. but. for all the visitors at the door. hey what you doing? jumping in to save the day. a baby on the move. and the guy who just can't stay. the fire that's getting closer. that break in... prevented. we got you on video! whatever it is... when you have ring... you can be sure that it's protected. protect your home today at ring.com

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>> in the city. >> hell, kid yourself, it's hot out there. i mean, let's just be honest. truly terrible couple of days here in new york city in terms of the weather, but also a very busy couple of days ahead. in fact, the nypd is preparing to deploy thousands of officers this holiday weekend as a number of major events are set to take place in that sweltering heat. thousands of people will gather to celebrate this year's milestone, independence day number 250. there's also a major world cup match happening just across the river at metlife. and yes, the rumored wedding of superstar taylor swift. and this is all happening during that aforementioned record breaking heat wave. the police commissioner said earlier this week that there are no known or

credible threats, but the department is preparing just in case. joining us now live from times square, miss now investigative reporter marc santia, smartly dressed in a polo shirt. too hot for anything else. marc, tell us more about how the nypd is preparing for what could be a mega weekend. yeah, jonathan. >> this is a party 250 years in the making. we're in the middle of times square right now, and they're preparing for a birthday block party today. of course. remember, jonathan, before dc? new york city was the nation's capital, and there are a lot of events planned. you can take a look up top here. this is where the famous times square new year's eve ball drops on new year's eve. well, today it will be dropping eight times to mark the eight time zones of america. there's also going to be an aerial review. a vessel, a naval review will be the largest fleet ever in american history that will be down in the harbor here. but when we spend time with the nypd, every single available officer will be working this weekend. hundreds of thousands of people are expected here. as you said, no known or specific

threats. but the nypd working around the clock to keep this city secure. we talked and we spent some time with deputy commissioner rebecca winer. she's in charge of counterterrorism and intelligence. and she told us that today and this weekend, it's all about symbolism. symbolism is key. this is what she told us. >> whenever we do threat assessments for large scale special events, we think about symbolic value of the event. this couldn't be a more symbolic event. again, independence day two, 150th birthday of the united states comes at a period against a backdrop of profound geopolitical instability and conflict. remember, the u.s. for the last few months has been fighting in a naval war. we're about to have an international naval review of

warships from around the world in our harbor. >> all right, so not only do we have all of these 250 events set up throughout the city, but you mentioned it. there's also a wedding that's set to happen if you walk about eight minutes down broadway here, you'll find madison square garden. that's where, according to sources familiar with the events, that's where the nypd, as well as other branches of law enforcement, will be keeping an eye on the taylor swift travis kelce wedding, the rumored wedding. we're expecting that this afternoon. there's about a thousand guests who are invited. there will be a heavy police presence there around the garden. it's set. the party is set to go well into tomorrow, into july 4th. so besides all the birthday events for america, the travis kelce taylor swift wedding, a lot of events here in new york city. a very busy weekend for the nypd. they're also communicating with different police departments across the country, sharing information again at this time, no specific or credible threats.

jonathan, back to you. >> miss cynthia, live from times square. thank you. stay safe, stay cool. and mark mentioned taylor swift's rumored nuptials. let's bring in our resident swiftie ali vitale. ali, let's let's get your thoughts here. i mean, the rumors are there's been reporting that it's today, this afternoon, this evening and that square garden, the big event. how are you handling this? >> i'm handling it fine. look, i think it's a bit of an odd location. the word tacky has been used. that being said, i keep coming back to a lyric that was on one of her early albums. she says she chose the rose garden over madison square. i am now forced to question if she's not bringing the same kind of rose garden that she got engaged in, that they posted that picture of of the two of them on social media when they first got engaged. if she's not bringing that kind of energy into msg, it does seem like all signs point to the fact that this was not a head fake, that this is likely their wedding. i get the security

concerns. we saw everyone from erin andrews to selena gomez flocking to that area of the city yesterday. i'm sort of forced to wonder if the dress code was metallic, since everyone seemed like they were in those kinds of tones. i'm excited for them. at the end of the day, we know she loves a july 4th party. that has always been a thing back in watch hill, typically where she has her rhode island house, there were a lot of questions about if that was going to be where she did it. ultimately, i think it's this, and i'm just going to choose to be happy for them and they can celebrate their wedding however they want. though midtown felt a bit off, i don't know. >> yeah. first the knicks, now this msg, certainly having a moment. our best wishes to the happy couple. meanwhile, the rest of the country is preparing for record breaking july 4th travel. triple a is predicting more than 72 million americans will head at least 50 miles away from home this holiday weekend. the federal aviation administration and major airlines are preparing for some of the busiest days of the entire summer. joining us now live from newark international airport in new

jersey, miss. now senior transportation reporter josh einiger. josh, give us a preview. how busy are things going to get? and do we think that this heat with potentially accompanying thunderstorms, may complicate people's holiday travel plans? >> well, jonathan, good morning and happy fourth to you. and yeah, the heat and the potential for storms obviously will be a big issue, especially for workers on the tarmac at a place like this. i'm standing at the united operations center here at their mega hub at newark liberty airport, and this is where they're managing operations for as many as 800 flights. that's flights coming and going here at newark airport over the course of the day today, tens of thousands of people flying through just this hub at just this airline. and that is a small piece of the puzzle all across the country. a couple hundred miles away from here, we had an inside look at the faa facility at the

center of air traffic control nationwide, and exclusive look at how workers and air traffic control keep the system flowing on a day as important as today. >> this morning, the great escape is underway for the busiest 4th of july in the sky in 15 years, and all of it managed here in the nerve center of america's air space. >> there's a lot that goes into the system, and we do have the safest system in the world. >> sean mccloskey runs the faa's joint air traffic operations command, miss now granted exclusive access to the high security facility in virginia, where controllers react in real time to everything from storm systems to space launches. >> we do have san francisco gdp. >> it's here where they manage the flow of flights along invisible highways over north america, keeping people moving, even if sometimes that means seemingly endless waits on the ground. >> when you're making decisions for the for the airspace system,

you have to remember that you're doing it for the, the the flying public, the taxpayer, the people buying the tickets. that's where your focus needs to be. >> it's pretty common here for a place that touches the lives of so many americans. right now, as i speak to you, this is what's going on in the sky over the united states. that's 8000 planes in the air. and that's just this one moment. over the course of a day, they might see 50,000 flights over the united states. that's millions of americans impacted by the decisions that happen in this room. >> the faa expects to track more than. >> 330,000 flights over the course of this long holiday weekend. that adds up to nearly 18.7 million people. the tsa plans to process, and all amid extra challenges on america's 250th birthday. with military flyovers planned in new york and washington and disruptions to match. and it means shutting down all service at reagan national airport for 12 hours saturday from noon until

midnight and during the busy getaway friday. nothing in and out for several hours at dc a. because of airshow practice. >> hopefully most people get to stay away from that, but i think it's a little inconvenient. >> show off our airplanes. you know some of those f-22 raptors. you know, i think that's a real sign of our american strength. >> as always, the biggest wild card for summer travel is the weather. the faa tries to predict the worst. >> we can start to see. there's just increasing chances of storms over the weekend. >> but meteorologist eric gustafson says sometimes it's the small cells that cause the most havoc. blocking your route. when all you see is a clear blue sky. >> you almost don't even realize when it's nice at the airport, but there's in route problems, so there's definitely a crunch to get that stuff right. >> people ask it all the time, right? it's sunny, right? >> but my plane here at the airport. right. but my airplane is delayed. there's a lot of space between where you are and where you're going. >> and that's an overview here at the united hub operations

center at newark. they are looking down at dozens of gates at this sprawling hub as they try to manage the mundane things that could cause a delay. and just so far this morning, here are a few things that's happened. there was a passenger on a flight that came in that was sick who needed an ambulance. that, of course, is important for the passenger. it also could potentially cause delays in the future. so they had to manage that situation. the driver of a crew bus got sick, called out sick. and so a crew that was supposed to work a flight to boston was potentially going to be late getting to their flight. so they were able to get a different driver to a different a different bus to get that crew here to the airport. these are the mundane issues that come up all day, every day at a place like this. and if they manage them effectively, your flight will not be delayed. those issues have come up. it's not even 7 a.m. on the east coast. it's going to be a very busy day here at newark, and they are hoping that things stay smooth through the day.

guys. >> no flight for me, but good luck to all those who are traveling this weekend. miss now reporter josh einiger. thank you so much. still ahead here on morning joe. we're going to explain why croatia fans are absolutely livid this morning at the world cup. referees. pablo torre will try to help us explain offside when we come back. >> i can't wait, hardly another day. same pain. same meds. same struggling for symptom relief. injections like humira and enbrel works similarly to treat moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis. but, if your symptoms haven't improved enough, rinvoq works differently.

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>> coming up. there are growing questions this morning about why a nun was detained by ice agents in texas. we're going to get a live report straight ahead. plus, democratic senator richard blumenthal will join us here at the table at the top of the hour. we have a lot to cover with him. that's all our health care is being stolen. if 200 planned parenthood health centers are forced to close, jaime's cancer goes undetected tati can't get birth control jake misses sti testing we can't let this happen. millions depend on planned parenthood health centers for care go online, call or scan the code on your screen to donate $19 a month and we'll send you this "care. no matter what" t-shirt. act now to save their care and yours. (ambient noise) (snare hit) (clapping) [reporter on tv]: the supreme court will hear a case challenging birthright citizenship.

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>> a live shot there of the. >> punishing heat in our nation's capital. you can make out the reflecting pool. yeah, you can see some of the green from here, but you can't see from this view. atop the washington monument is the utter lack of crowds at the american state fair to celebrate our two 50th. really a sad, missed opportunity by this administration. welcome back to morning joe. it is friday, july 3rd holiday holiday eve. let's begin this hour by diving into some of the top stories we're following this morning, beginning with the department of justice yesterday declining to turn over additional files related to the late sex offender jeffrey epstein, as had been ordered by a u.s. district judge. the doj instead asked the judge to delay the deadline or to disregard it by accepting the department's reasoning for not handing over the materials. doj officials argue that releasing more files would harm epstein's victims, and as they contain sensitive or private information, the department has

faced criticism and legal challenges for months now over the slow release and heavy redactions of these materials, which were ordered to be made public last year by the epstein files transparency act that was passed by congress. elsewhere, a new report by the washington post reveals that donald trump jr could soon personally profit from a proposed gun rule change currently under consideration by the trump administration. last year, trump junior helped take the online retailer grab a gun public, of which he is both a shareholder and board member. the company is often referred to as the amazon of guns. the post reports that the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives is considering a rule change that would allow firearm purchases to be completed entirely online. that would include identity verification and background

checks, according to reporting in reuters. if finalized, the rule would be among the most consequential changes to the u.s. gun policy in two decades, potentially driving huge growth in online gun sales. that's according to ten industry officials, store owners and gun control advocates who were interviewed by reuters. reuters goes on to report that the change could directly benefit trump junior, who is more than 300,000 shares in grab a gun, are currently worth more than $700,000. a spokesperson for the president's son responded to the reports, stating that trump junior had no role in the atf proposal, simply a stunning development that a member of the trump family might profit from a change in administration policy. elsewhere, the fbi is redirecting manpower into an investigation that's connected to the 2020 election results in

georgia. again, in an attempt to find new evidence to support president trump's baseless election fraud conspiracy theories. the probe has been labeled a priority for the bureau and two u.s. officials familiar with the matter tell m. s now, it's become a nationwide effort. documents obtained by m. s now show that fbi leadership is authorizing intelligence analysts to work overtime on the case, including weekends and holidays. the document also shows that fbi director kash patel is ordering personnel from all field offices to participate. an unclassified was issued on wednesday, ordered all fbi field offices to immediately surge support to an fbi atlanta priority investigation. more than 250 fbi intel officials are being moved to this probe. this comes as the bureau pours over more

than 600 boxes of seized election results. election records taken from a fulton county, georgia, election facility back in january. then director of national intelligence tulsi gabbard personally went to fulton county to oversee that raid. the fbi has declined to comment to m. s now, let's bring in democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. he is a member of the armed services, homeland security and judiciary committees. also joining the table, we have pulitzer prize winning host of pablo torre finds out m. s now contributor pablo to miss now's ali vitali still with us as well. thank you all. senator, we appreciate you being here with us so much to get to with you. but let's start with that last story. you'd think the fbi had other priorities right now, but clearly not as director patel has. is surging personnel to fulton county to reinvestigate. let's be clear

baseless claims by the president of the united states about election fraud. what concerns you about what they might be doing for 2020 and what they might be setting up for 26 and 28? >> well, that's the key question. what are they setting up for this next election and 2028? you know, on its face, the pursuit of these baseless claims is fodder for saturday night live and the humorous. but there's a deadly serious consequence, which is the waste of fbi resources, the compromise of this great agency's integrity and the pandering to donald trump. kash patel is proving to be really the ultimate trump sycophant. but there is an effect on the integrity of law enforcement and also, in effect, beginning the rigging of the next elections or attempt to do so by claims un supported claims

of some kind of corruption in these local elections, which will enable trump potentially to call out militia, call out the fbi, try to, in effect, take over elections. and we are working hard in the united states senate to prepare and fight that kind of threat to election integrity. >> senator, there are so many fronts, obviously, as that roundup of headlines that john just ran through indicates. but the notion of the president's wealth now becoming more than an open secret at this point, as it is being argued about on cnbc just yesterday. how do you describe the scale of the conflicts of interest, whether it's a gun company or whether it's a crypto scheme or whether it's any number of these projects? how do you explain that scale, and also what might be the remedy available to the congress, to the senate. >> the scale and scope would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago. i mean,

we're talking about the president making $2.2 billion in one year, 1.4 billion of it from his crypto venture, which involves investments by the emiratis of hundreds of millions of dollars. and then, of course, all of the other crypto compromises that involve wealth to the witkoff and trump families. to put it in a nutshell, as we approach this 250th birthday of our country, this kind of corruption was exactly what the founders sought to prevent by including clauses in our constitution that forbid this kind of self-enrichment by people in power, and there are remedies for it. i intend to continue my investigation on the permanent subcommittee on investigation. i am pressing everyone who

would have any knowledge about it. obviously, we're in the minority right now, but once we are hopefully in the majority, these investigations can reveal all of the tentacles of this corruption, both from foreign interests and domestic ones. but the scale, as you have said, is just beyond words in the magnitude. and it affects not only trump but everyone around him. the granting of pardons, for example, involving fixers, lobbyists, lawyers close to the administration, they are making millions of dollars by compromising the national interest. and of course, the story just mentioned where the president's sons have been benefiting by their investments, not only in grab a gun, but also defense companies that have received $3.7 billion. you know, once you begin talking about it, there's almost no end to the conversation. but it is

exactly what the founders sought to prevent in the emoluments clause and other provisions of the constitution. and what we have hoped to stop with laws. so i will just finish on this note. republicans need to be held accountable. republicans in congress have been absolutely silent. >> i want to drill down a little bit on the questions that you're asking on the permanent select committee on investigations, because you wrote to the acting ag this week demanding some new information on a closed doj investigation that goes into president trump's decision to grant clemency to a convicted fraudster. that clemency ended up costing victims and the government more than $15.5 million in what would have been restitution for roughly a $1.6 billion fraud scheme that this private equity equity executive had participated in. i wonder what information you're looking for from the attorney general. and i recognize that you say it's just a letter. we're in the minority, and i think that's the right assessment. but in this specific instance, you are supposed to have acting

ag todd blanch in front of the judiciary committee in about two weeks when folks come back to town. and so i wonder what might he bring that could answer some of the questions that it seems you rightly have about this. >> absolutely. right. great question. in fact, i pressed todd blanch when i met with him just last week, and i will press him again in the confirmation hearings for facts surrounding the apparent shutting down of an investigation that was underway in the eastern district of new york. top officials in the department of justice apparently called the u.s. attorney in the eastern district and quashed an investigation into an improper payment for clemency. and what happened, apparently, is that a fraudster by >> by the name of david gentile. sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding thousands

of people out of $15.5 million, as you have said. walked into prison on his first day and said he was paying 2.5 million to a priest in connection with his effort to get out of jail. and low and behold, in fact, clemency was granted. he was released after just 12 days. and very importantly, that restitution to the victims was stymied as a result. shutting down that investigation. when top officials of the department of justice called the u.s. attorney in the eastern district, raises the most serious kinds of questions so far. todd blanch has refused to answer my questions, but i'm going to be asking them again during the confirmation hearings, and i'm going to be calling on my republican colleagues to hold his nomination until we get answers. the american people deserve that information.

>> those hearings scheduled just a couple of weeks from now, senators, stay with us. we want to get your reaction to this story. a catholic nun detained by ice while walking to mass in the state of texas has now been released after members of congress intervened in the case. a spokesperson for the catholic diocese of brownsville confirmed to usa today that the nun was released last sunday evening, several hours after ice had initially detained her in the town of mcallen. the incident sparked outrage in the local community. a post on social media by one local church asked parishioners to pray for the nun. after the initial reports of her detention, as news about the case spread. members of the southern texas congressional delegation called for her release. other lawmakers, including republican congresswoman monica de la cruz, worked with dhs to secure the nun's release. the diocese said it's continuing to gather information surrounding the circumstances of the incident. a dhs and ice have not yet

responded to our request for comment. let's go live now to fort worth, texas, and miss now. reporter nnamdi now nnamdi. good morning. you spoke to one of the lawmakers who worked to get this nun released. what more did he tell you about just what happened here? >> yeah. i spoke to democratic representative henry cuellar, who was among the south texan congressional leaders that were immediately contacted by church leadership. when sister leticia agbo, nigerian nun, was detained. he told me that immediately after hearing the news, seeing the outrage, he reached out to the dhs leadership, including markwayne mullin and also borders are tom homan, and he really credited homan for playing more of an active role in ensuring the release, he says. he told me that his message to homan was that, look, my constituents support a degree of border security, but when they see images of ice going after, you know, a nun draped in religious garb, one who, mind you, has served as a volunteer minister at this church, one who has

worked in health care in south texas for the last ten years. when they see images of someone like that with no criminal record being detained, it does nothing but sow distrust in the agency and create a culture of fear. so apparently homan was receptive to that message, according to cuellar, as well as a bipartisan backlash that was only growing as the nun was detained and in the hours even after her release. and homan facilitated her release that sunday, says he actually got to speak to sister leticia following her release. i want to play for you part of our conversation about how she was feeling when she was out of ice custody. >> she was very grateful. she was also said, you know, she was scared when she got picked up. you know, all of a sudden people come in and say, are you so and so? yes. well, here you go. not knowing where she was going to go. so she explained to me what had happened to her. and i can understand it. it was scary the way she presented. when you put an image of a nun

going on a sunday morning under garb, going to church and getting picked up, that's not the right image we want of america. >> and cuellar said that this instance is one of many. that is the reason why he wants to see more guardrails placed on ice guardrails, including the reinstatement of a policy that previously barred ice from conducting arrests near sensitive locations, whether that's a hospital, church or school. that's a message we heard echoed from church leadership. i want to read you a little bit from this statement from bishop daniel flores of the archdiocese of brownsville. he says it is clear that homeland security enforcement protocols that make it possible for a religious sister or anyone to be detained and handcuffed while peacefully walking to church on a sunday morning are wildly disturbing and need to be reformed. >> now, reporter nnamdi, thank you so much for joining us this morning. live for us there in fort worth, texas. senator, i just want to get your reaction

to this particular story. but this story, as just noted, is just one of many, is just one of many right now in terms of, you know, ice agents, you know, seemingly, you know, making mistakes, abusing power at times and the wrong people are being detained. this is not, in president trump's words, his promise of removing the worst of the worst. >> it's exactly the opposite of removing the worst of the worst. and what we're seeing is this pattern repeated all around the country again and again and again. sadly, the new leadership my former colleague markwayne mullin, has failed to change these kinds of abusive and excessive tactics, arresting absolutely innocent people who have done nothing wrong, played by the rules. and it happened in west hartford just within the past couple of weeks. a restaurant owner who

has been in this country for almost 30 years, a pillar of the community, clearly having problems with documentation, but no risk of flight, no danger to anybody detained in rhode island for a couple of weeks. he was released just a few hours ago, literally as a result of our intervening and fighting. i have done this kind of fight again and again and again because they've, for example, detained afghan refugees who helped our troops while they were in the fight in afghanistan and risked his life. he's here because he would be killed if he were sent back to afghanistan, and they detained him for months. we have managed to intervene in these cases to fight for these people, but we shouldn't have to do it. the agency is out of control. we tried to institute reforms. in fact, we refused to fund ice and cbp and the republicans,

with their reconciliation bill, pushed through that funding. and we need to regain the majority for democrats so we can bring this agency under control. >> an afghan interpreter, a restaurant owner, a nun often cases children, not the worst of the worst. democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut, thank you for joining us this morning. we hope you have a good july 4th. >> you too. >> coming up here on morning joe, we're going to go through the latest knockouts at the world cup. as we enter the final day of competition in the round of 32, plus, the record setting attention on team usa is prepares to play for a spot in the quarterfinals. we're coming for you, belgium. you're watching morning, joe. we'll be right back. >> bison. country road, take me home to the place i belong.

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million upset about that red card? team usa next will take on belgium on monday in the round of 16. now, as for yesterday's action on the pitch, superstar cristiano ronaldo celebrated his first ever knockout stage goal at the world cup last night. you just saw it. he converted a penalty kick for portugal in the 68th minute to tie their match against croatia, but it was the header from goncalo ramos, with ronaldo, who had been subbed off the field. this came in stoppage time that ultimately clinched a two one win, sending portugal to the round of 16. this is a good matchup. portugal now gets to play in the quarterfinals on monday against spain, portugal, spain. spain rolled past austria for a three nil victory in yesterday's round of 32 contest out in los angeles. switzerland also advances, reaching the round of 16 for the fourth consecutive time after a workmanlike two nil win over algeria. we have three more knockout games slated for today, including world cup, cinderella,

cape verde matching up against argentina and a guy named messi. you can see the whole schedule there. pablo, let's two things. first, that croatia. >> yeah. >> portugal game. the headlines are actually the goals that didn't count. there is a tweet that's been going viral this week about how do you explain soccer to to a non-fan like an american who's just getting into the world cup. how do you explain the concept of offside? and basically you say, did something exciting happen? if so, it was offside. >> yeah. and i can actually turn to the back page of the new york post because what they said about the u.s. and that red card also applies to croatia, its flag and the sentiment, which is red, white and screwed. yes, this also applies the thing you want, by the way, as a sports fan, which now, of course, as america coalesces around this tournament, everybody can be mad about the rules is can you let the players decide if it's a close call? can you let the players decide? and according to the video replay system, and according to that video angle,

which we did not see at home, but apparently the ref might have an angle on. there was a touching of the ball while the teammate was beyond the line. and so guess what? what would have been extra time is instead. >> so here. so here's the graphic here. it's a real. this would have been an absolutely thrilling tying goal. as you can see in the 107th minute where plus ten here, you know really devastating for croatia. and pablo you mentioned it. the red card also controversial. i will note secretary of state marco rubio wandered into the white house briefing room, also suggesting that that red card was bogus. which one makes one wonder? president trump, where are you? let's get in here and get this thing overturned. >> if mike pence had the courage, john, they could they could make this different. >> hey, look, fifa gave him a peace prize. now is the time to cash it in monday against belgium. we'll have more to say that morning. okay. in a minute. back to the news. and coming up here, the trump administration appears to quietly delete long standing advice for staying cool in the summer heat. after

new york city mayor zoran mamdani faced intense backlash for giving that exact same guidance. also ahead, we'll be joined by one of the candidates in the michigan's democratic senate primary race who just got a major endorsement from a top progressive lawmaker. morning. joe is coming right back. with all that and more. total beets, america's best selling beets brand, is available at walmart. total beets blood pressure support soft chews contain a key ingredient clinically shown to deliver two times better blood pressure support. take control of your health. head to walmart and get total beets blood pressure support soft chews today.

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>> look at that. a live shot. >> of the construction zone that is known as the white house. cranes scaffolding the hole in the ground where the east wing used to be. all right, the. >> something used to be there. >> the white house. meanwhile, the trump administration seems to have quietly taken down a government web page offering homeowners cooling advice after republicans heavily, heavily criticized new york city mayor zoran mamdani for offering new yorkers that exact same guidance. with temperatures hitting triple digits here in nyc. mamdani, a member of the democratic socialists of america, posted guidance yesterday asking residents to set their ac to 78 degrees. mamdani wrote. a stable grid means the ac stays on and lives are saved. republicans, of course, were outraged by the advice former congresswoman marjorie taylor greene took to social media, writing that

american energy should be so strong and plentiful that you never have to set the ac above 70 if you don't feel like it. congressman rand paul of kentucky also reacted, writing, senator rand paul also wrote this proof that communism is unfortunately alive and well. and senator ted cruz of texas weighed in, writing, in a first world country, you could turn on the ac. now we'll note that texas leaders. that's where ted cruz lives, have made the same request of its own residents on multiple occasions, including during a series of past heat waves. and until recently, the department of energy had similar guidance for homeowners on its website. but as you can see, that page has now been taken down. so, pablo, real quick, not only i mean, first of all, previous new york city mayors, including republicans, have given the same advice bloomberg did and others, you know, the grid is taxed. and the trump administration also did that. >> i just like the idea of what counts as victimhood now

because 78 degrees. oh, that's a good cover. can we get back to john for a second? holding the con air 78 degrees a not that hot. sorry to be, you know, whatever, you know, facts don't care about your feelings about this, but also the whole taking down of the web page. as always, the cover up is funnier than the crime. like guys, there's an internet archive. i can find that page in about five minutes in the commercial break, and i might at this point. >> so more on this story going forward. meanwhile, so there are fears of a communist takeover of american thermostats. but setting that aside, there has also been a wave of progressive candidates winning democratic primaries the last two weeks. on tuesday, a 29 year old democratic socialist defeated a longtime incumbent in colorado, the latest in a streak of far left victories from the centennial state to new york and beyond. while some party leaders are pushing for moderate candidates moving forward, our next guest, democratic candidate for u.s.

senate in michigan, abdul el-sayed, is hoping the recent trend continues when voters in his state head to the polls next month, and he just secured an endorsement from prominent progressive congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez, who argues that he is, quote, building a winning coalition by putting forward an agenda that speaks directly to working people. and abdul el-sayed joins us now. so good to see you again. let's start there with this obviously significant endorsement from aoc. why do you think right now, candidates on the left, the progressives in the party, yourself included, seem to have so much momentum. >> well, we've taken the time to listen. i myself have been to 110 different cities, 450 public events. we go everywhere. we talk to everyone. no matter where you go. people are deeply frustrated by the fact that they can't afford a dignified life. they're worried about somebody getting sick and

having to hit that $6,000 deductible. they're worried about being able to pay just for the meat to be able to grill up. on july 4th. they're worried about being able to afford the utilities, and we're speaking to what it looks like to take corporate hands off of our politics so that our politics can actually be about trying to make our lives more affordable, standing with unions, guaranteeing health care through medicare for all. and i think that is winning up and down the ballot, because for too long, we've been focused on parties and where the parties are going, rather than the people and what the people need. and i think this movement is about the people and what we can do to actually serve them. >> so yesterday you gave a television interview. you were asked about the middle east, and you expressed some frustration that you were always asked about israel, but never asked as to whether a palestinian state had a right to exist. so let's do that now. do you believe a palestinian state has a right to exist? >> should that be the will of the free palestinian people, then? yes, but here's the point. at the end of the day, we have this debate here in america about what we ought to be doing over there. but i believe in

equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination for all people. and the decision about what happens in the future to create the ultimate peace should be between the palestinian people and jewish-israeli people about how they want to live moving forward. and so it's not actually our decision to make. and i'll tell you this, the question about israel having a right to exist is separate from whether or not israel has the right to our tax dollars. and to many politicians spending huge amounts of money in this race through aipac, i think that our best use of our tax dollars is to be sent over there, to drop bombs over there, rather than to invest in health care and schools and housing here. and i happen to believe, as the next senator from michigan, that i want my tax dollars spent in michigan. >> so that message there, what you just said about palestinian state, but also the israeli state, american taxpayers, do you think? i mean, certainly right now in the democratic primary, there's some energy behind that idea. but can that win in a general election? >> i'll tell you what. there is no room i've been to where somebody doesn't come up to me and says, you know, i voted for donald trump and i'm voting for you. now, that might break some

minds in new york or d.c. but here in michigan, people understand that we're struggling and they say, look, i want america first. i thought that's what that guy was going to give me. and then he went off to venezuela and then greenland and iran. i think you really want to make sure i have health care here. i think you really care about the quality of my kid's school, and that's what i want to. so i'm voting for you. and so i think that can win in the general election. i think that can win nationwide. >> it's ali vitali in washington, d.c. you know, one of the things that i hear on capitol hill in the aftermath of what happened in new york primaries, in the aftermath of what happened in colorado primaries, is just simply trying to play the game of addition. how do democrats retake the house? how do democrats retake the senate? but i think implicit in that is a question of when members of the democratic socialist party come in as part of the democratic party, where is the line, you know, where does dsa start and the democratic party end? and i wonder how you're thinking about that as someone who is on the more progressive side of the spectrum and is trying to embrace this very big tent for the democratic party?

>> yeah, i really appreciate the question. first, i don't identify as a socialist. i just write about capitalism. and i can tell you that capitalism, its biggest danger, was never government regulation. its biggest danger was always monopoly and oligopoly. and we've gotten to a point in our economy right now where no matter what you want to buy, what you want to pay for, there are like 2 or 3 mega conglomerates that get to decide what that price is. they use ai and algorithms to collude to raise your prices on you. i think part of the reason they get to do that is because corporations have too much of a say in who our elected officials are, so they have too much of a say in our governance. i just want regulation on capitalism. so that actually works for people. i'm a doctor, and i saw that worst of all in healthcare. i wrote a book on medicare for all. we don't need private health insurance. we need guaranteed health insurance. and we can do that easily. if we were willing to get past big pharma, big insurance, big hospitals who are dominating our system right now so we can do hard things and we can actually provide for people if we're willing to break the chokehold that too many corporations and special interests have on our politics.

>> you know, when you speak about the oligopoly, when you speak about who is getting rich right now, so many americans are suffering. a lot of americans are looking at silicon valley and they're thinking to themselves, how is it that artificial intelligence as an industry is booming beyond precedent, while people are struggling on main street? and so how do you propose dealing with that? how do you propose taking control, perhaps, of an industry that is going beyond what anyone had imagined? >> thank you so much for asking that question, because it's a question i get asked at every single town hall i do. people are worried about a data center in their backyard. they're worried about whether or not they're going to have a job. in the era of ai, we've proposed a plan called ai under democracy now! ai is new technology, but democracy is quite old technology that we've used to govern ourselves and the things that we create for a very long time. and i trust it to be able to govern ai as well. right now we have ai being created under the incentives driven by the greed of, of very, very rich billionaires. and i guess a trillionaire too. i think the

best thing that we can do is, is break away. new ai companies from old school internet companies set them up as corporations that are focused on the public good, not just their bottom line, and make sure that we have democratically elected or appointed folks on each of their boards. if we do that, then we can make sure that the incentives that they are focused on, like curing cancer, are what they do. instead of figuring out how to take half of our jobs. >> democratic candidate for the u.s. senate in the state of michigan, abdul el-sayed, thank you so much for joining us this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> coming up here on morning joe, we're going to take a look at a new project, which is asking top artists to reflect on america's musical legacy. that's next. on this 4th of july weekend. >> to the new york island, from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for you and me. if you believe that your body is your own, and that reproductive health care

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>> i had this vision of america, this myth of america. there were people coming from somewhere, and there are people who are here who are going somewhere great. >> every 60 or 70 years, our culture feels we've lost our way. and it's just the way the pendulum swings. and it always is good to sort of reassess. >> there are lots of people missing from the great american songbook that could expand our

ideas of what it means to live and to love and to suffer and to grow. >> couldn't wipe this black off if i tried. that's why i lift my head with pride. it's hard to even expound on a line like that because it is so emotionally impactful. there's a lot. >> of infamy surrounding the song. >> but we feel like it's really an important part of the fabric and foundation of our nation. >> that's part of the special. >> performance and conversation series titled songs of u.s. in which musicians reflect on how america's musical identity has evolved and where it's headed. as we mark the nation's 250th anniversary. now, liza levy, she's the president of salt lake incubator, the company behind this new music series. thank you so much for joining us. so give us. let's start right there. what is the sort of the the animating ethos of this series? >> i think as the united states reaches its 250th birthday,

everyone is reflecting, right? they're reflecting on our past and our future. and i think that our goal was to give the microphone to the artists and ask them, they're the greatest empaths we have. i think music is one of our greatest exports. so the idea is, can we ask the artists, what are the songs from our musical legacy that you are so proud of and you are so happy to come from that were birthed here in america, and what are the songs moving forward? if you were to create the next iteration of the great american songbook, what would be those songs that are going to live beyond all of us? >> yeah, the songbook, of course. you know, always evolving, always growing and incomplete. and this is in addition to try to add to that. so tell us about some of the selections that are making. >> yes. so we asked the artists to perform two songs. one would be something more classic sort of american songbook era, maybe 20 to 50 ish, and then contemporary songs by their peers that they think are both timely and timeless. so in the more classic era, we had truesdale performing amazing

grace, which of course is a song about horrific wrongdoing and the plight for redemption. we had three artists, jordan, simone, ashley and leah the leo performing somewhere over the rainbow, a song about hope and our future. we had grace potter perform this land is your land by woody guthrie and the forgotten verse, or the less known verse which says there was a big high wall that tried to stop me. the sign painted said private property, but on the backside it didn't say nothing. this land was made for you and me. >> so we have a clip featuring amy grant, who talks about one of the songs that she chose to perform for the series and what america's 250th birthday means to her. >> i sang the 6th of january, and i love that song because it has so many historical references, and it's a song about possibility and unrest, which, by the way, that is the great experiment that is america. and, and i do feel

like the line that kind of just rests in openness is we've lost our way. and probably every 60 or 70 years, our culture feels that way. and it's just the way the pendulum swings. and it always is good to sort of reassess, how am i a part of the situation? what can i do? to invest in and love the country and the culture and the and the family of man that i'm a part of here. >> not shying away from a difficult subject matter there. so that was amy grant. tell us about some of the other artists involved. >> yes. an artist named jordan simone for her contemporary song performed be alive by beyoncé, which is an anthem about black excellence. we had leah the leo, an incredible r&b

artist who performed tracy chapman's fast car reflection on the working class. another working class song, 9 to 5 by dolly parton, performed by truesdale. incredible power pop trio. check out their harmonies. we had the architect by kacey musgraves performed by farai about grappling with spirituality. paulo preto performed a selena song, oh tiny habits, another incredible harmony trio performed blowin in the wind. they sound like one person when they sing together. and then we had some original songs. so ray zaragoza, an indigenous americana artist, performed her song who says that's not american? we had karuk perform their original song, scooby, about sort of capitalism and reflection on their part in it. and then we have, which just dropped today. mickey guyton performing john denver's country road. and at noon today, you'll also be able to listen to mickey's original song called all american. >> that john denver song has

taken on another new life right now, because of the u.s. men's soccer team has become this sort of their unofficial anthem. lastly, before you go, just talk to us again, just the importance of song in the american story. how often, whether it's for out of celebration or out of out of mournful or out of protest, it's always been part of what we do. >> the artists have always brought us together, whether it's the we are the world or it was love rising in nashville or it was hurricane katrina. the artists have always been able to reflect culture and then elevate a message for us. and i think whether it's, you know, we had otis williams, an original member of the temptations on the series. we had gene simmons. so artists coming from very diverse backgrounds. but the common theme is really about the power of the song and their reverence for this american musical legacy. >> all right. well, the new series is available now on salt lake sessions, youtube channel and social platforms. president of salt lake incubator, liza levy, thank you so much for being with us this morning, and we'll be right back with more.

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has always been that those values don't have anything to do with political parties. when i'm a prosecutor and i have to get credibility, build credibility with a judge or a witness, the jury, right? it's not about politics. it's about truthfulness, integrity, being decent to each other, exhibiting kindness, judgment. i think those are the things that bind us together, and those are the sort of things we should lean into. like i feel like personally, as divided as we are, if we lean into issues of integrity more that that's the best hope to get people more back together than we are now. >> as former. >> special counsel jack smith, speaking exclusively yesterday with m. s now's nicole wallace, we will have much more ahead from that wide ranging conversation. smith's first live television interview since he resigned from the department of justice. good morning, and welcome to morning joe. it is

friday, july 3rd. thank you for being with us. i'm jonathan lemire, in for joe, mika and willie with us. we have a great group m. s now senior capitol hill reporter and the host of way too early, ali vitale, columnist and associate editor at the washington post, david ignatius, m. s, now senior washington reporter and co-host of the weekend eugene daniels and opinion columnist for the new york times, david french. thank you all for being with us this morning. happy 4th of july to you and to all those watching at home. we have a lot to get to. it's a busy morning, and we'll begin with president trump continuing to defend his wealth and his children's business dealings. after financial disclosures revealed earlier this week that the president has made more than $2 billion during his first year back in office. >> in the disclosure this week, the amount of money that that you and the family made in crypto, it was an outsized number. i was just saying, did you were, you know, about the

crypto ventures? so that was just something that i could know about it. i didn't. >> i mean, there's nothing illegal. there's nothing wrong with it. i could know i feel badly and away from my kids because every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock or if they go and do a bill, anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything. if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is, you know, sort of like, how's my energy policy? so therefore you have a conflict. almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you know, if they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information. so it's pretty tough in that sense. i tell my kids, stay away from as much as you can stay away from. but they also have a life. you know, they we were doing business long before i ever thought of. you knew me a long

time before i thought of even running. >> but the dealings. >> under scrutiny are, of course, not as simple as simply buying a new vehicle. both of trump's sons have benefited when companies they own or they are involved with have either inked deals with the white house or cashed in on deals made by their father's administration, and they both have gained from cryptocurrency ventures under their dad's name. donald trump jr and eric trump co-founded world liberty financial with president trump. that means that they earned a portion of the more than 500 million in token sales and $65 million in selling equity stake that the company brought in last year. david french that was trump there at our sister network cnbc, trying to explain this away, the new york times, your paper and other places have written extraordinary pieces just about how unprecedented this. and sure, we've had other wealthy presidents before, but we've

never had one who's made this sort of money while in office. and seemingly he and his family making this money because he was in office. >> we cannot forget, also that the trump administration, the trump campaign made hunter biden a centerpiece of the entire 2024 contest. i mean, they were talking about hunter biden relentlessly. so is right wing media. and hunter biden never got within shouting distance, screaming distance of the kind of numbers that we're talking about here. and then the kind of overt self-dealing, stock trading, crypto investing that we're seeing in which the president is enriching himself. and then many of these riches are being extended to friends, supporters, etc. at a scale in which, you know, i've said this before, that the gilded age, the gilded age oligarchs are sitting there thinking that they, you know, are rolling in their graves, that they were

doing this in the wrong century. they could have made real money if only they were waiting around until the 2020s. and so, you know, this is a situation here, though, that has some resonance with a very recent electoral outcome in europe, where once the some of the economic promises of populism start to falter once some of the the the grandiose authoritarian ideas of this new populism, populism start to lose their luster, then a lot of voters start to look at corruption. they often won't look at it when times are good, when they're feeling good, but when times when they're under strain, when inflation is increasing, when they're feeling pressure in the job market, the absolute last thing they want to see is a president of the united states making himself multibillion, multiple billions of dollars, really exploiting the opportunity that they gave him. and so this is something that, while the economy is humming, doesn't really hit us, but it

absolutely does when people are struggling. >> we want to turn now back to jack smith and his first live television interview since resigning from the doj, the former special counsel sat down exclusively with our friend miss nicole wallace for that wide ranging conversation yesterday, before he stepped down from the doj back in 2025, smith brought two cases against donald trump, one on election interference and the other related to classified documents. both were dropped because trump then won the presidency in 2024. smith defended his investigations and also weighed in on the rule of law, as well as his concerns about the upcoming midterm elections. >> i have. >> investigated cases focusing on the facts and the law throughout my career. we did this case the same way under the same standards. and, you know, the thing that's, i think, important for your viewers to know is those standards are not meant to change from one administration to the next. and in my experience, until now,

they haven't. and so, you know, i think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything i've seen in my lifetime. one of the problems right today, besides the the retribution prosecutions, is that the justice department can't do its job right. if you go to court, claim that, well, if you go to court and the judges don't trust you, you can't do the basic things that you need to do to represent the american people in court. and we have seen judges across the country say they can't trust prosecutors anymore. and that has a cascading effect on any sort of case. and, you know, i can't count how many opinions, but one opinion like that in my career would have been seismic. people could not would not know what to do if a court said, you know, trust that's been built over generations has been lost in days, right? and that's happening every day. and so regardless of what you think politically, they're just not

effective at doing their job anymore. >> well, let me ask you first. do you agree that we are covering in real time an assault on our elections, the upcoming months? >> i'm very concerned of what's going to happen in the next election. absolutely. it's a different situation now based on, you know, the people who perpetrated january 6th. they probably learned from how they did that. my personal view is, i think the state attorney generals have a tremendous role to play here. they can make sure the rule of law functions in their state. and i would also say that i think a thing that all of us can do is support election workers and election officials. the last time around, we saw that those people stood firm and they were, in many cases, the difference. it's clear to me anyways, that what i've seen publicly, that those people are going to be put under great pressure. and my experience not only just the special counsel, but, you know, i was the chief of the public integrity section at the department of justice for five years, had a number of cases with election officials. these

are people also. they're not tooting their own horn. they're not self-promoters. they just care about our democracy. we need to show them that we have their back. >> ali vitali, an extraordinary interview there. finally hearing from jack smith. and i think a stark assessment of, of course, what what happened, why his cases vanished, but also his fears, though he voted, you know, he suggested the rule of law he believes still is alive, alive and well here in the united states. but his fears about this upcoming election and beyond. >> well. >> look, i think that there needs to be a dose of some optimism in that. otherwise, the entire tone and tenor of the interview is from dire warning to all out, we are in flames. and so you still need somewhere to go, right? and i think that's why what happens in november is so important. i mean, i can't tell you the number of phone calls that i get from, you know, democratic operatives looking at various parts of our election systems and wondering, okay, where could they be exploited and what could we do to plug that

hole in advance of that? i think the early answer is that you just sort of have to wait to file these things in court until something happens. and so you've just got legions of people who understand our election systems trying to figure out the ways that something might go wrong. nevertheless, i think it's a dire assessment from jack smith, someone who has been loath to come out in the media who, when he was hauled in front of congress, immediately wanted to do so in the public eye because he had never been given a chance to present his public findings. and the thing that i really keep in the back of my mind is that the foundation of jack smith coming forward right now, eugene, is that he is someone who felt he could have successfully prosecuted the current president of the united states on not just keeping classified documents after leaving >> office, but on meddling with and trying to corrupt american election results after he lost the 2020 presidential election. and the thing that's changed since then is that the american public saw january 6th. they watched the next few years, and then they said, you know what? let's put that person back in

office again. and so i wonder how you make sense of the jack smith warnings, the work that he did, the knowledge that he brings to the table, and the fact that the american public still said, this is the person we want in the oval. >> yeah. there's probably no one more frustrated about that than jack smith. right? he is someone who understands more intimately than any of us do, about what happened and what the trump team was doing, what their allies were doing. a lot of it happened in plain view, right. the phone call in georgia. et cetera. but there are things that he knows that none of us we may never know now because of the judges. what i took from that interview the most was that one. he is someone who doesn't want to speak up. like you said, like we've had folks that have worked for him on our show. you probably have them on yours. and the thing that they said over and over is like, this is not a guy who wants to be out front talking to reporters. he doesn't want to do two blocks on any show, you know, let alone a show as amazing with an amazing journalist like nicolle wallace. but he's doing it, they say, because he is so

concerned. and the hope is that one, maybe not maga republicans, but people will watch that and say, okay, since this is a guy who knows all of this, maybe there is something there as we get closer. maybe i should rethink the way that we're thinking about this. and most importantly, he doesn't sound unhinged or crazy or full of hate like donald trump and some republicans have tried to paint him. so. it's also about making clear to folks like, he's just a normal guy who's a prosecutor, very measured, who knows a lot of information and wants people to be concerned about what's going to happen in this country. >> i had the same feeling listening to to jack smith. i was reminded this is a career prosecutor. he's talking about how to rehabilitate, how to rebuild the justice department. he's talking about the career attorneys who are still there trying to do their jobs. he says, i was for five years the head of the public integrity section, prosecuting republicans, democrats, everybody i stand for. he's, in effect, telling us the rule of law and we're going to rebuild

that. it was it was he's not a defeated guy. he's facing enormous pressure himself. but his thoughts were with his colleagues. we're with the country. we're with the rule of law. so jonathan, you know, he's that that interview is pretty powerful. but i think we got a sense of who jack smith is in his in his comments under pressure. that that's pretty interesting. this is this is not a the kind of snarling, anti anti-trump guy that we've been led to believe. this is this is a career public prosecutor trying to do his job. >> coming up, governor wes moore of maryland is standing by. he's set to deliver a major speech tomorrow on the true meaning of patriotism. we're going to get a preview straight ahead here on morning joe. >> we take care of our own. wherever a flag flown, we take care of our own.

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hot in the summer. >> as america spruces up for its 250th birthday tomorrow, there's growing scrutiny over how president trump paid for some of his grand plans. it turns out the administration is diverting funds from other national parks to foot the bill, even as those parks struggle to keep up with critical

maintenance costs. miss now reporter britt miller has the story. >> president trump taking it all in. walking around lafayette square in washington, d.c. with interior secretary doug burgum this week, the two marveling at recent renovations ahead of the 250th anniversary. >> what we did is the beautification with the parks and the grass and everything, removal of all the tents, and this is like a different place. one of the things we did is over 50 fountains and statues, most of which were in horrible shape. they've all been fixed. we also fixed the reflecting pool. >> but these beautification projects come at a cost. according to an miss now analysis of a federal contracting database from just the last seven months, at least $90 million in national park entrance fees are being funneled to washington, d.c. paying for some of those fountains, a fraction of that algae riddled reflecting pool

in about 1.6 million towards the national mall fireworks, all while national parks battle a $24 billion maintenance backlog. >> i feel incredibly frustrated. i feel deeply saddened by it. >> former park service director jonathan jarvis calling this diversion unprecedented. >> i think it's a major mistake, political mistake on the part of the administration. >> whenever a visitor pays a fee at a popular park. federal law requires at least 80% of it stays within that park for upkeep. about 20% is usually spread to smaller sites that don't charge at all, like the national mall. however. >> that process is not being followed now. >> instead, park advocates say the general pool is being drained and poured into the nation's capital. and while d.c. parks need repairs, too, they can't believe projects across the country are going unfunded, many related to public safety.

>> so there's one park that we heard from that spent countless hours of work, both at the park and at the support office. they had done the site assessment. they had done the surveying, they had crunched the numbers and put the budget together, and they were told that they had the money. and then that was taken away and they were told, sorry, we're diverting that money to washington, d.c. >> in fact, the atlantic reports more than 900 park service projects expecting millions this year never received it. now, senator adam schiff and ten other democratic lawmakers are pushing for transparency, sending this letter to secretary burgum. >> and i think that part of that 80% is not going back to the park where those fees are collected. so that would violate the law. well, this is what we're hearing, in part, from people who would qualify as whistleblowers, but we want to get the records. one of the purposes of our letter is to find out whether these allegations are true, and to be able to hold the administration accountable.

>> and a spokesperson for the department of interior says the agency is focused on both beautifying the district for the 250th anniversary celebrations and tackling deferred maintenance, looking at different funding options like endowments and revenue from park passes. back to you. >> miss brent miller. with that report coming up, a conversation with presidential historian doris kearns goodwin on the eve of america's 250th birthday. the pulitzer prize winning author is our guest. when morning joe comes right back. >> beautiful day. let it on 3— liberty mutual customizes car insurance to help people save hundreds—1-2-3! [overlapping dialogue] liberty mutual... hundreds...? nailed it! [clapping] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ shape. he had a stroke and passed away. he had a life insurance policy. ethos.com. in

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>> hey, it's that time of the week. for a look at what's on the morning joe reading list. and with us now, of course, new york times bestselling author ryan holiday. he hosts a top ranked podcast, the daily stoic. it gets roughly 5 million downloads every month. he's also the owner, of course, of the painted porch, an independent bookstore in texas. ryan regularly talks about reading recommendations with more than a million of his followers. ryan, your theme this week? good summer reads and you start with a with david bentley hart going in and studying the writings of a man for 40 years and being so moved that he wrote this classic.

tell us about it. >> yeah, let's go back almost 3000 years. the daodejing a sort of mysterious book of of poetry and aphorisms translated by david bentley hart, who i will say also has a beautiful translation of the new testament. so he's got a mixing of east and west here. i'll give you a just a quick one that i think is beautiful, one who does, one who knows, does not talk, and one who talks does not know. stop your mouth. bar your gates, blunt your sharp edges, unravel your tangles, soften the glare of your brightness. submerge yourself in dust. this is called the secret of unity. so here we have eastern wisdom, some of the oldest eastern wisdom we have. and these will be something to chew on this summer. >> i can take that to heart. next. pontius pilate. i think one of the most one of the one of the most mysterious figures actually in the teaching of jesus and misunderstood. tell us about pontius pilate.

>> yeah. this is an incredible biography. i've been raving about this for years now. i wish more people knew about it. you're right. it's a it's a biography of one of the most ominous and misunderstood characters in, in the, the western tradition, a guy we know about primarily from his enemies. why did he make the decision that he made? why did he sentence jesus to death? you know, tony blair, an ro quotes him in this book, you know, sees him as a politician under pressure who makes a bad moral decision. and i think it's fascinating to see him as a guy with a job with a crappy boss, the emperor tiberius. he's under pressure from the mob. and instead of standing up, instead of doing the right thing, instead of, you know, even asking a question, jesus says, you know, i am the way, i am truth. and pontius pilate says, what is truth? you know, fundamentally disinterested. and so i think this is a fascinating biography. that'll that'll really rivet you this

summer. >> a terrible boss, a mob that's pressuring him and a wife who's saying, don't do it, pontius. don't do it. he should have listened to his wife. next is the golden spruce. it's an environmental true crime story. tell us about that. >> yeah, i was i just did a drive through the pacific northwest. and you can see these trees. this is a almost 200 foot tall sitka spruce. this, you know, a freak of nature, this spiritual sort of holy tree that gets cut down by this man. i think with mental problems, he's struggling. it's his act of defiance and, and, and sort of environmental protest. but you're right. it's a, it's a true crime story about this incredible tree written by one of our great narrative nonfiction writers. this book, this book, it's not as good as the tiger, which is john vaillant's incredible book, but it's it's up there and it's worth reading. yeah. >> let's talk about

revolutionary road by richard yates. obviously a classic. >> yes. my favorite novel is the moviegoer by walker percy. it narrowly beats revolutionary road out for the national book award in 1961. but there are two books about, you know, the very modern ennui and aimlessness, the emptiness of modern life, the struggles of marriage. this is a. this is a book that will make you think. the movie is obviously quite good. the book is darker, but. but one of the fascinating things about reading fiction from a long time ago is. it is how timeless the themes are and how modern those themes are. >> yeah. you know, one of my favorite genres comes actually from from my home region in the deep south. for all of our terrible failings, we're pretty good. we're pretty good at at as a background for southern gothic novels and especially courtroom dramas, to kill a

mockingbird, still, atticus finch, still one of the great classics. furious hours also details the courtroom drama in the deep south. tell us about it. >> yeah, most people know that that harper lee didn't write anything after to kill a mockingbird, but but they don't know that she tried to. and she tried to write a true crime book about this insane case in the deep south about this reverend who's killing his family members for insurance money. and she's covering the trial, but the book never comes out. so the first half of this book is about that true crime story. and the second half of the book is about harper lee struggling against writer's block and imposter syndrome and perfectionism. i had no idea about any of this. i also didn't know her relationship with truman capote and how involved she had been in in cold blood. just just a fascinating book. you love when you read books, and it opens up a whole other world and version of events that you didn't know about.

>> i got to ask you, where do you fall on the conspiracy theory that truman capote actually helped harper lee write most of to kill a mockingbird? because that's the explanation. maybe that's why she never wrote another great book. >> so the conspiracy theory, i think put put forth here is that it's the other way around that, that that harper lee was much more involved in the writing of, of in cold blood than, than truman capote was. and that, that she's the, she's the genius in that relationship. but again, those, those literary relationships are just endlessly fascinating to me. >> well, yeah, i would guess truman capote sometimes had trouble focusing from everything we've heard about truman capote. finally, let's talk about slow productivity by cal newport and talking about how we can reclaim the term productivity from today's sort of fast paced meaning. let's talk about what slow productivity is. >> i think summer is a great time. you know, your life's a little slower. you're thinking

big picture, your life's a bit more balanced, and you go, why can't life be like this more of the time? and i think that's sort of the theme here of slow productivity, that it's not about doing as much as possible. it's sort of that that old roman idea of festina lente, make haste slowly. how do you find a more sustainable pace? how do you find something a bit more enjoyable? how do you how do you access those those deeper ideas that cal newport puts forth that idea of deep work when we're really focused, when we're not distracted, when we're locked in. and i think this is a great recipe to getting more of that productivity. i think he's one of our great thinkers, especially in this sort of noisy, digital, modern age. read something from cal newport. if not this one. read his book deep work or digital minimalism three great books to to read this summer and then take back into the fall. >> well, i'm going to get that. i'm going to read it and i'm going to give it to my children and anybody else who will get it. because in this age where attention spans have been

ground down to about 15 seconds, that seems to me the most timely book we could read right now for productivity. ryan holiday is always. thank you so much. greatly appreciate you being on morning joe. you can check out the daily stoic anywhere you get your podcasts, and please visit the painted porch.com for your books and for more information. we'll be right back with more morning joe. >> everyone killing time. we were young and restless. when needed to unwind. i guess nothing can last forever. i wish i wasn't afraid to smile. i wish i could get implants. i wish i knew who to trust. i'm not looking for another quick fix. i want a smile i know will last.

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>> theodore roosevelt believed in the america that really works and worked. he refused to accept failure, mediocrity, corruption, decay, or decline. and neither should we. >> that was president trump on wednesday during his visit to the theodore roosevelt presidential library, located in the badlands of north dakota, set to officially open to the public tomorrow, the 93,000 square foot bunker stands as a testament to the legacy of one of america's most famous commanders in chief. it features interactive exhibits

as well as an artificial intelligence avatar of the late president with which visitors can interact. it says bully a lot. joining us now from medora, north dakota, is pulitzer prize winning presidential historian doris kearns goodwin. also with us, the co-founder and ceo of all in together, lauren leader pablo torre and ali vitali. back with us as well. thank you all for being here, doris. of course, we will start with you. you know, remarkable new facility there for a tribute to a remarkable president. tell us more about what we can find in north dakota. >> well, it's absolutely astonishing. you know, i mean, this was the place, as he later said, without which he would never have been president. he had been so depressed when he came out here. his wife and his mother had died on the same house in the same day, and he came out really to just escape. but somehow he found a healing out here, which was much more important than an escape in the beauty of this landscape. he it seeped into his soul almost. and he became the great

conservationist. but even more important, from then on, he was a romantic cowboy. he was a wrangler. he had been with farmers and cowboys. and he was no longer just an eastern dude, a dandy. so he was able to combine those parts of the country when he came back to be president. he also trained his troops later in the rough riders. he brought the wranglers and the cowboys together with the knickerbocker guys and the somerset clubs. so all these parts of america that had split apart, that felt they weren't the same. the west was decided from the east. the south was off from the north. he brought them together. he was a united figure and he was so much fun to live with. i'm. i spent ten years with him and i felt like i was back with him again. my boyfriend. i got back with him again these last couple of days. >> so, doris, you and your ex there, tell us about what lessons of from t.r. what parts of the t.r. resume or legacy or character do you think would be most useful for our country today, as we head into the two 50th anniversary? >> you know, in so many ways, i

think the time in which he he was president is much like our own, because you had the industrial revolution had shaken up the economy, much like globalization and the tech revolution and ai today. you had people who were rich and people who were poor, a massive gulp. big companies were swallowing up small companies. new inventions were making people a little scared about the change of the pace of life. and capitalism had no regulations from the time of the civil war until teddy roosevelt. so there was a feeling that there was no control over the economy. and he comes in and he comes in with this perfect slogan, which is more than that. it's his whole legislative program, a square deal for the rich and the poor, the capitalists and the laborer. and he had rational regulations that did not break up these big companies unless they were not doing well. that allowed them to move forward, but with more concern for making sure that they were treating their workers right, and they were lowering prices as a result of efficiency that came from bigness. and he just had a spirit, i think, that that people glommed onto. he had more energy than anybody i've

ever known. there was a vitality to him. he was fun. he acknowledged errors in. when he was in his. he wrote a memoir about the rough riders. his experience in the spanish-american war and humor said he made himself the center of every moment, of every action that he should have called it alone in cuba. so everybody is laughing at him. but instead he writes back, i regret to tell you that my wife and my intimate friends are delighted with your book. now i owe you one. i hope we can become friends. he was able to laugh at himself. he had humility. he had all the qualities of character that you really want in a leader. >> so, doris, stay with us, please. we'll come back to you in a moment. we should note, as we head into the 251 democratic leader is planning direct counter-programming to president trump for the july 4th holiday. governor wes moore of maryland is set to deliver a speech from the statehouse in annapolis tomorrow. it's titled the work of patriotism. in it, the governor is expected to make the case that democrats cannot cede patriotism to the

president. and governor moore joins us now. he, of course, also a combat veteran who served in afghanistan. governor, great to see you, as always. thank you. happy 4th of july to you. so give us a preview, if you will, because this is interesting. the idea of patriotism has become sadly polarizing, even symbols of this country, like the flag. i know some democrats who are deeply they feel ambivalent about it, at least for now, because they feel like president trump has seized it all for himself. give us a sense as to what you plan to say tomorrow. >> i want to highlight the fact that the united states is still the greatest experiment in world history, that there was nothing like it before. and in many ways there's been nothing like it since. now we understand that our history is complex. we understand that our history is complicated, that it has been ugly at times. but i also know there has been this arc, that patriotism and the work of patriotism has really inspired that. tomorrow i will

be giving an address as the first african american governor in the history of the state of maryland, and i'll be giving it from our state house, which was partially built by the hands of enslaved people. there is something to the unlikely nature of this country. and i think that what we're seeing in washington, d.c. while we're watching almost a tribute to self, a tribute to an ideology, is just is not just backwards, but it's deeply un-american. and so, you know, when we see darkness, we want to introduce light. when we see hatred, we want to introduce love and context. and i think that's what this speech tomorrow is going to help to highlight. >> governor, as i hear you talk about what your speech is going to highlight, i think about the way that we started the show today with david ignatius writing a column about how the u.s. is glowing and decaying all at once. and i think even as i hear you talk about the historic abilities that you yourself embody, are we still a country at this moment that is

striving for our better angels? and as we look at this 250th anniversary, what do you hope for the next 250th or even for the next year? >> you know, there's a there's a great song by by donny hathaway called a song for you. and he says, and he says, i know your image of me is what i hope to be. and i think in many ways that's the story of america, where the image of america is what we hope to be and we strive to be. but it's something that even when the country was first founded, it wasn't founded on the idea that we created a perfect union. it was on the idea that we're creating a more perfect union and that every generation, their job is to help to bring that about. and i think that's the difference in many ways between america 250 and freedom 250, where america 250 is a celebration of patriotism. freedom 250 is a celebration of nationalism. and that's the difference that i think the president is inspiring here. and so i think the hope that we have is if we really take on the work of patriotism, the

work that so many before us did, that we actually have a better chance of being the country that we hope to be governor. >> there has never been, i think, a feeling that i can recall of the mainstream, the the rest of the country feeling like there are things going on at the very top, both embodied by institutions as well as this administration, things going on that they cannot access or profit from, and yet they are being asked to, of course, celebrate a country that seems politically like it is heading in a direction that only exacerbates that gap between what is being done behind the scenes and what is being told to them. how do you speak to a nation that is looking for something like critique, perhaps while also feeling like the notion of pride is obviously a political opportunity for the democrats that hasn't quite been seized? >> it's absolutely right. and i think that feeling is justified because, you know, we we're here talking about how the

united states was a gift. but for many people in this country, what they're seeing is a grift, right? they're they're seeing a president who has now profited by billions of dollars. you know, we are seeing policies that are cutting people off of health care policies that are ripping children away from food assistance. while we can give billionaires tax cuts. and so the frustration that people feel it is a very real frustration. i understand it. and the and the cynicism is real. the thing that i ask in this moment is and remind people is, again, i don't come from a political background or political family. this is the first office i've held in my life. and so my measure of cynicism has not left me. i still carry it with me every single day. it's part of the reason that i ran for governor in the first place. but i want for that cynicism to be my companion. but i don't want it to be my captor. i don't want it to be something that i can look at the future and say, i'm now opting out, and i'm forgetting about the sacrifice

that people made before me. what i want to use it is, is my motivation and my ammunition to be able to think about the type of future that we want to be able to pull together. what we are seeing right now from washington, dc and from this trump administration, it is grotesque, but the answer to it is not simply to forfeit and to let it happen. the answer to it is to do what those who came before us did and say. we will fight for a better future, because that was the hopes of this nation in the first place. >> democratic governor wes moore of maryland, thank you so much. we'll be watching for your speech. happy 4th of july to you. >> happy fourth. thank you. >> lauren, take a question to doris, if you will. but before you do, give us your thoughts here as we head into 250 about, we hear so much about the founding fathers. but talk to us about the role you're as you're thinking about the women who played such a vital role at the birthplace of this country. >> you know, less than 15% of the american history that kids learn in school includes the history of women's contributions to this country, and that remains just a massive

gap. we are and have always been essential to the founding, development, growth, success, and impact of this nation around the world. and i'm very heartened by some of the new books. norah o'donnell's new book that calls out, you know, we that we the women, the sort of interest now in capturing the stories that have been overlooked, overlooked, whether it's katherine johnson and hidden figures or other women who, you know, were so fundamental. and i do encourage americans this week, as we're thinking about the fourth, you know, not just to dig into the well-known history of women like abigail adams, who really tried to fight for women's leadership from the beginning, but so many other women that contributed to the country all together. substack this week lays it out. a lot of the history of the country that was shaped by women and continues to be. and, you know, it's my hope that not just for not just the contributions of women, but really, you know, diverse americans of all backgrounds, that it's so fundamental to the fabric of who we are, even in this moment where we're

overlooking diversity and trying not to talk about it. and it's become a dirty word. like that is who we are in every way. >> so, doris, back to you now, your thoughts about this moment as we head to 250, but also in that includes a new documentary about george washington that i know you're a part of that's about to premiere. >> now, one of the things that's so interesting is that theodore roosevelt's hero was abraham lincoln. he read the ten volumes of nicolay and hay when he was in the middle of a great coal strike. and then lincoln's hero was george washington. so they're all connected. and yes, we've worked on a documentary, pastimes productions and the history channel on george washington, the father of our country. and it takes you really, from the beginning, all the way up to his presidency. and i think there's what lincoln wanted more than anything was for people to remember these parts of history that were gone the revolution, the civics. it's so important. and the great thing about being here in the t.r. library right now is that in addition to all the libraries we have for the other presidents, this one is different because it was built

107 years after he died. so we have all the technology. there's actually an ai teddy you can talk to. all the time that i spent living with him. i asked him questions and he never answered, so i had to answer for him. now i actually was able to talk to him yesterday. it was a real conversation. it was incredible. i started asking him what he felt about the idea that he was leaving after the 1904 election. he said he wouldn't run again because he had served seven and a half terms. he probably hated that. and he told me he hated that. and then i talked to him about would he have run in 1916? and then just in the year before he died, he was thinking of running in 1920. and then death just took him sleeping, as his son said, if it hadn't taken him sleeping, he would have had a fight because he was a fighter all his life. so you feel his presence. every exhibit here is interactive. i mean, i think these presidential libraries are so important for people to come to. we want kids to come not only here, to all of them. we just need kids to feel again, lincoln said. it was so important for civics and the understanding of history to get in young children, so they can feel the ideals when the times of history have gone. and i

think that's why i love history so much. and these presidents i've studied, they all lived through difficult times, and they all came through those times. and somehow we as a country came through. and that's got to give us hope and perspective and, and lessons from the future. so it's a great time to be celebrating history on the 250th anniversary. >> i love these presidential libraries. i'll be certain to visit that one. and the new documentary, george washington father of his country, premieres tomorrow at 8 p.m. eastern on the history channel. presidential historian doris kearns goodwin live in north dakota. thank you so much, pablo. we only have a few seconds left, but just give us a quick thought as to what you have holding close here as we head to the 250. >> yeah, i'm listening to a conversation about teddy roosevelt, and i'm wondering about the people who wear the costume of conservationism, the president, doug burgum, as they perform what it means to care about the natural resources of this country while they plunder it. it's hard not to wonder what ai teddy roosevelt would say about that as well. if we had the opportunity to ask

pablo. >> thank you, lauren, thank you so much. thanks to all of you for watching. that does it for us this morning. we hope you have a wonderful weekend. we hope you have a wonderful july 4th. we will see you monday, 6 a.m. eastern. money power to politics with stephanie ruhle is up next after a short break. happy fourth of. >> roy gold required. cheers. all success. [coughing] copd isn't pretty. from the struggle to breathe... to getting stopped in your tracks. bye, grandma. ♪♪ but with trelegy, i can finally move forward. with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. once-daily trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night.

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